Chương 90: CDM 2, Chapter 26: Accommodations

After a brief lunch, the four of us were given a tour of the Bluewater campus. Since you have probably seen the show, I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. It was big and luxurious, like the vacation resort version of a military base. The hotel had all the ammenities–a pool, a spa, world-class chefs, massage therapists–and the grounds were similarly opulent. We could use the movie theater or perhaps take a private lesson with one of the on-site crawl instructors.

Then when you were ready to go crawling, you went to the private helipad for a ride out. I learned on this trip that I did not like helicopters, by the way. If you saw the show, then you saw the Bluewater megayacht as well. That was our base of operations, and none of us were aware that it was going to be a boat. I pictured something far more rugged on the mainland with high walls and barbed wire to keep out wild monsters. The boat looked even bigger in person, and it had more amenities than the campus.

What the cameras really failed to capture, though, was what it felt like to see the coast from the deck of the boat. Miles of coastline with stretches of sandy beaches in between jagged rock formations ran from horizon to horizon. Most everything beyond the coastline was obscured by dense, lush jungle, dotted with patches of towering bamboo. Here and there, the odd structure poked through the green, but having sat since the 40s, very little of their original character was left.

Behind those, rocky hillsides rose into the sky, hints of the larger, more fantastical mountains that could be found farther inland. Enjoying all of this was a bit strange with a camera crew following us and pushing Nad-Nade cans into our hands at all times. We were assured our identities would not be revealed in the final footage, and I had hoped that would make the reality show filming process a bit less invasive. It didn't.

I don't know how long the four of us stared at the view, but we were startled when a man with bronze-brown skin in military-style fatigues joined us in leaning into the railing.

"Beautiful, yes?" he asked. His accent was a combination of British and what I recognized as African, giving his speech a sort of upbeat, rhythmic cadence. I'm embarrassed to admit that my ear for the many languages and dialects on the African continent was poorly tuned, so I couldn't immediately place what country he was from. I learned later that he was from Ethiopia originally. He pointed to the right, roughly northeast from where we were anchored.

"You see those islands? Those used to be a part of Xiamen, a trade hub between China and Taiwan. When you depart, ask the pilot to fly you in that direction. Much of the port is still standing. Feels like going back in time, but I like all the shipwrecks the best." Next he pointed west.

"Lingtong Mountain is that direction, and that's roughly the direction we'll go. Depends on the gates, you see, but I hope we get that far. They're beautiful."

"Sorry, I'm Nathan." My best friend offered his hand.

"Ah yes, I am Dawit," the man said, shaking Nathan's hand.

"I will be your guide. Don't worry, it will be more than me. My team is enjoying their time off below deck, but they will be ready to join us. I promise you this."

"It's nice to meet you," Megan said, beginning a round of the rest of us introducing ourselves and shaking Dawit's hand.

"This is a good season to visit," he continued.

"Americans tend to dislike the summer months. Who am I kidding? I dislike them too. Hot, wet, sticky. Maybe that's fun for a beach vacation, but not for crawling. If you please, I sought you out for more than handshakes. I'd like to see your kits. If you are missing something, better to know today on the boat instead of tomorrow on the mainland." We followed Dawit down a set of stairs covered in fuzzy blue carpet. He entered a code into a pinpad and then held the door open for us.

This was the Bluewater armory, or rather, one of the Bluewater armories. Swords, spears, axes, bows, a dozen different types of armor, tactical gear ranging from goggles to wetsuits–the room was packed. Two stainless tables occupied the center of the room, and our crawling gear sat upon them. Nad-Nade provided several impact-resistant cases with foam-padded interiors to ensure our gear traveled safely. I went first. Dawit watched as I unpacked my leathers.

He nodded approvingly at my ironwood bow but raised an eyebrow when he saw my homemade, improvised gear.

"What is that?" he asked.

"This is… uhh… it's a bandoleer." I felt silly holding the scrappy sash in front of a serious crawler.

"Why so many flares?"

"Trolls."

"I do not understand."

"If we encounter a wild troll, flares are our solution for killing them." Dawit stared at the flares for a long time, perplexed.

"I do not understand. We use incendiary grenades. Much more effective." I chuckled.

"I'm pretty sure we'd go to jail if we tried to buy incendiary grenades."

"But they are better."

"Oh, I believe that. I wish they were an option." Eventually, Dawit moved on, asking, "And this?"

"That's my crowbar sheath. Had to modify a sword sheath a little bit to make it work." He rocked his head back and forth. I took that to mean the presence of the crowbar made more sense to him than the flares.

"When you return to your country, you should consider breach pens."

"What are those?" Nathan asked before I could.

"We used them in my previous career. They are like your flares but hot enough to cut through chains or deadbolts. If it were me, I'd prefer as hot as I could get." And I agreed. I made a mental note to look into breach pens when we got back to the States. Next, we went through my other miscellaneous items, like my binoculars, my first aid kit, my blacklight spray paint, and my ninja tripwire firecrackers. I was surprised he didn't ask about those. Then we went through Megan's kit.

When we finished with her gear, he looked around the room.

"Apologies," he said, addressing Nathan and Beth.

"We seem to be missing your equipment. One moment, and I will find-" Nathan waved his hands.

"The two of us aren't crawlers. I run the drone, and she's our manager."

"You do not intend to join the adventure?" Nathan and Beth looked at one another.

"I kind of figured we'd be chilling out on the boat," Nathan admitted. Dawit frowned and pulled out his phone. He scrolled and poked for a few seconds.

"My orders say we have four guests," he said after a minute.

"A level 8, 7, 3, and 1. Are those correct?" Chrissy had asked us all for our levels, but I didn't think that meant Nathan and Beth were going into gates.

"They are," I answered.

"I do not know where the mix-up occurred," Dawit began, "but we are prepared to guide the four of you."

"You want me to follow them into a gate at level 1?" Nathan asked. Dawit laughed. Shaking his head with a smile, he put a hand on Nathan's shoulder.

"We keep guests alive, so you do not need to worry. You and Miss Beth will be escorted to E gates near the coast. Mister Dorion and Miss Megan will enter Ds, Cs, and if luck favors us, a B. I believe we can have them leveled appropriately for that in the time we have."

"We didn't bring any gear," Beth said. Gesturing to the room around him, Dawit replied, "We are prepared for this. Now, we will not force you to go to the mainland if that's not what you want. You are welcome to enjoy the accommodations, or my team can outfit you and take you leveling. The decision is yours." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Beth looked at Nathan with wide eyes. Sighing, Nathan asked, "You want to level, don't you?"

She shook her head excitedly. Nathan turned to me.

"What do you think about this, Dor?"

"I think it's your call, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal. You won't get a chance like this back home, ever."

"I've never killed anything before, let alone gone into a gate." Dawit nodded.

"This is not unusual. Many of our guests have no crawling experience. My team is accustomed to this precise scenario."

"How many guests have died?"

"Only a few." Dawit broke into laughter again and slapped Nathan on the back.

"I am only joking. We have never lost a guest. Last week, we escorted a prince and two princesses. I cannot tell you their names, of course, but they were younger than you and level 1. They went home at level 5 and very much alive." After a deep breath, Nathan said, "Okay. I'll do it."

"Good choice. Good choice. We have equipment you may borrow." That evening, we sat on the deck of the yacht for dinner: a simple but refined steak, broccoli, and mashed potatoes. Nathan insisted he could taste the difference in quality between this luxury steak and what came out of a Giant Eagle at home, but I couldn't. Since we had been filming all day, we were given the night off, which meant it was only us and the waitstaff. Though we had hours of new experiences to discuss, we were exhausted.

I missed the banter of being around a dinner table with family, but I also didn't have the energy to lead the charge of starting a conversation. Beth rested her head on her hand for just a moment and nearly dozed off right there. Some time around when my plate was mostly empty, the door behind the bar opened. A man with silver hair and a sharp haircut stepped through. His white button-up was open and flapping in the ocean breeze, and he wore little white boat shorts.

Megan accidentally bumped her plate with her glass, and he startled at the clink. He put a hand on his heart.

"Apologies. I didn't know we had guests and am sorry to have disturbed you."

"We're fine," Megan said.

"Don't worry about it."

"You're not the Whitmore children, are you? I thought you were older. No, can't be."

"Not us," Nathan replied.

"We're the group with Nad-Nade."

"Ah. You're the marketing I heard about." He stepped forward and offered his hand.

"Leonard."

"I'm Megan, that's Beth, then Nathan, and Dorion."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. Have you gone ashore yet?"

"Tomorrow morning," Nathan answered.

"It's quite the experience. You're in excellent hands with our guides. I assure you. Now, if I may, I'd like to ask an embarrassing question. Embarrassing for me." We waited expectantly.

"What made you famous? I don't watch television, you see. I much prefer to hear these kinds of stories in person."

"Well, umm…" Megan began. She briefly summarized the story of our fight with the trolls in a high school and how it went viral during the frost giant coverage.

"Lovely story. Thank you, friends." He dipped his head and went back to the bar. We exchanged confused glances with one another. Leonard fished around in the cabinets beneath the bar and emerged with a bottle of wine. His content smile fell for a moment as he seemed to ponder something. He grabbed five wine glasses and came back toward our table.

"Might I join you for a bit? I am willing to offer wine in exchange."

"Dude, sure," Nathan said, "but I got to ask. Who are you? Are you one of the yacht staff?" Leonard chuckled warmly to himself.

"My manners. Tisk tisk. Bluewater is my company. One of them, rather."

"Oh!" Nathan stood.

"Sorry, sir. Of course you're welcome to join us." The rest of us nodded, but I think our brains were still trying to catch up, so we didn't say anything.

"Tell me. Hunting wild monsters is an entertainment trend these days, hmm?" He poured wine for each of us. I noticed Beth didn't protest. I didn't say anything to her about it, though. Megan accepted her glass with a smile.

"Not really. Other than the crawlers going into the real wilds, there's not anyone else hunting like we do."

"What made you decide to blaze this trail?" Gesturing to me, Megan answered, "It was Dorion's idea. Content was kind of an accident. We started doing it for the practice."

"Practice for…?"

"The two of us are CDM. We're trying to move up and thought sharpening our skills would help." Leonard sipped his wine.

"Has it helped?"

"We only recently started, but we are getting better at it."

"I see. Interesting times that wild hunts are entertainment, but I know I'm out of touch with these things." Beth cleared her throat.

"What gave you the idea to start Bluewater?"

"I was paying guides to take me on crawls, and I thought the experience was needlessly miserable, so I started my own service and did it right. This is a side project, though. My grandfather founded a west coast guild, and I'm on the board. I spend half my time there and the rest of my time investing in research into mana crystals or anything interdimensional. I have a few factories in Botswana too, but those run themselves for the most part." Leonard looked around conspiratorially.

"Between me, you, and this bottle of wine, Bluewater was one of the contractors chosen for New Eden. I hope that won't take up too much of my day-to-day, though."

"What will you be doing there?" He gestured to the boat around him.

"Mostly this, but we are also part of the border security effort. Confidence in the rest of the continent's ability to keep gates at bay is low. My turn. What are your goals?"

"Levels and profit," Megan answered immediately.

"Profit to do what?"

"There's a place we want to buy and fix up so we can all move in together."

"What then?"

"Pay our bills?"

"Surely you must want something more than that," Leonard said. His eyes locked on me.

"You, Dorion, right? You've been quiet. Tell me, what more do you want?"

"I want to experience what it's like to not worry about my bills every minute of every day," I said.

"A bigger TV after that would be cool."

"I have heard it said that your generation lacks ambition, but if that were the case, I doubt you would be sitting here with me right now. This boat was one of my goals. It motivated me to be the best version of myself. What is your boat? What bigger feats do you wish to accomplish?"

"I'd like to make custom bows," Beth said.

"Maybe open a shop or work at my teacher's."

"No," Leonard said, shaking his head.

"I fear you're not understanding my question. Your white whales. Your biggest dreams."

"I wouldn't hate being rich," I admitted, "but I don't need a lot. I lived out of a backpack for a while, and more stuff just meant more headache. I guess traveling a little bit would be nice. See Europe or something. I can't think of anything else, though."

"Man's natural condition is hunger, and what happens when you feed that hunger? You inevitably want more. When a man stops being hungry, he is on his way to death. You've started to taste success. You'll see that there's so much more you could build, and you'll only get hungrier." Leonard looked at the faces around the table.

"You're all being sincere," he observed, pursing his lips with confusion.

"I won't insult you by saying you lack ambition, because that's clearly not true, but I admit I don't understand it. Most of our clients are billionaires or millionaires who wish to become billionaires, the brightest minds of our generation–inventors, artists, humanitarians–and we can talk about aspiration and goals until the sun rises. But you four…" he tapped his cheek, thinking. Then he abruptly stood.

"Thank you for the excellent conversation," he said.

"Please enjoy the rest of your stay, and I hope we get to do this again." Leonard left the bottle on the table. He grabbed three more from the bar, two of which were hard liquor, and disappeared through the door in the back. Nathan frowned at his phone.

"Well, according to this, 'Leonard Resmith' has more money than God. That's fun."

"This trip has definitely been interesting," Megan said.

"He sounded a bit like my mom," Nathan continued.

"She was always super confused that I didn't want a bunch of collectibles and other stuff. I was basically living like a monk in her eyes. Dor will tell you, her house was wall-to-wall stuff. Packed tight and organized just enough that no one accused her of being a hoarder. She never stopped bringing home new things to add to it." Beth tilted her head.

"He reminded you of that?"

"His reaction to our lame goals." She turned to me.

"Do you think we're like that because of the church? All those verses about giving your wealth away on Earth to store up treasure in heaven instead, I mean."

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't notice the conditioning affects me sometimes still."

"Do I agree with that idea because it's right or because I was trained to?" Beth asked. Nathan held up a hand.

"Let me stop you right there. Dor and I have gone down this road several times in various states of inebriation, and I came up with the ultimate answer. Right, Dor?" I nodded, my eyes starting to sag from how tired I was.

"Okay," Beth said.

"Tell me."

"The thing that matters is being a good person now and in the future. How that came to be isn't really important. When you're talking about childhood shit, you'll never be able to answer that question, and most of your childhood was out of your control anyway." Megan grinned.

"You're very handsome right now."

"You like it when I talk philosophy?"

"Mmhmm."

"Do you agree with him?" Beth asked me.

"Yep," I answered.

"A few pieces of our fucked-up childhood actually landed in the right places. I'll take the win." Beth acknowledged my answer but didn't reply. She stared down at her plate. I patted her on the shoulder.

"You're doing fine. I'm going to bed."

"Goodnight, Dor," Megan said as I stepped away from the table. I paused only a few paces away.

"Uhh… Does anyone remember how to get back to our rooms?"